While increased power cuts have crippled parts of Egypt, a World Bank solution to the electricity woes has created a new challenge for the residents of Abu Ghalib in the north of Giza Governorate in central Egypt.

Although Abu Ghalib is located only a few meters away from The Nile, the land is parched, due to the village’s newly built power station, whose construction was mostly funded by The World Bank. This is a catastrophe for Abu Ghalib’s five thousand residents, whose livelihoods depend on the cultivation of fruit and palm. 

While increased power cuts have crippled parts of Egypt, a World Bank solution to the electricity woes has created a new challenge for the residents of Abu Ghalib in the north of Giza Governorate in central Egypt.

Although Abu Ghalib is located only a few meters away from The Nile, the land is parched, due to the village’s newly built power station, whose construction was mostly funded by The World Bank. This is a catastrophe for Abu Ghalib’s five thousand residents, whose livelihoods depend on the cultivation of fruit and palm. 

The source of dryness

Sa’eed Massri Muhammad, a villager, remembered when the power station was about to be built.  ”Two years ago, villagers were surprised when they sold about 72 acres to a Gulf businessman,” he said.  “Some sold their land at prices higher than normal ones. The land was unused for about a year.”

“One morning, we found equipment for drilling and construction, and when we asked, they said they would build a power station. The officials of the neighbourhood invited residents to a big party. We thought the project would provide jobs for our children and promote services in our rural area, as construction would raise the price of land. During the party, they distributed some cash prizes to the attendees and asked us to sign an attendance table. They also photocopied our IDs.”

Another resident, Khaled Abdulrahman, remembered when the problems started. “After several days, the area’s groundwater, on which irrigation depends, began to dry out,” Abdulrahman said.  “At first, we attributed that to high temperature and evaporation rates, but later we knew that the concrete of the station, which reached a depth of 120 meters, closed all the sluices of groundwater wells.”

Trees, whose planting took several years, dried out and “burned in front of us,” Muhammad said. “We tried to fix the problem by relying on the water of the Al-Riah Al-Behiri outlet, but the salty and polluted waters added a new catastrophe, wasteland.”

“When we complained to the Ministry of Electricity (MoE), they told us they had taken our consent on the project and showed us powers of attorney drafted using the IDs they had collected at the party.”

Duped by the ministry?

Some civil organizations supportive of farmers’ rights believe that signing-in at the attendance table was a trick by the MoE to gain the villager’s approval for the project. Subsequently, these organizations issued complaints to The World Bank, the primary financer of the power station. In response to the complaints, The World Bank sent an investigative team last month to listen to the farmers’ concerns and collect information. It conducted research on the region, but its results have not yet been disclosed, according to Abdulrahman.

“But peasants did not despair,” Abdulrahman said.  “When the government announced in its ‘Al-Gomhouria’ newspaper, its intention to begin the station’s execution, representatives of all the five thousand peasants went to the Department of Agriculture and filed complaints, accusing the government and MoE for violating the law by building on agricultural land, which is forbidden.” The attorney general has not yet resolved the matter.

Responding to these accusations, Aksam Abulula, the spokesperson of the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA), considered the construction actions of the station to be legal. He stressed that The World Bank had sent, from the start, a committee to ensure that the land was valid for building.  Once it had confirmation, he said, the funding came and construction began, and that the station production power of 1,000 megawatt would reach 2,500 by the end of this year. He asserted that this issue was resolved, especially in light of the ongoing electricity crisis, and that MoA hoped the station would play a role in resolving the crisis. He however did not explain the signature collection process or whether or not the signatures were misused.

The World Bank: friend or foe?

For its part, The World Bank, declined to comment about its role in the Abu Ghalib crisis; sending, instead, a newsletter about its development projects in Egypt. However, residents confirmed that another committee was quietly sent a few days ago to inspect the site.

“If you look for the words ‘national project’, you will find the secret,” said Mohammed Abdulazim, the director of the Egyptian Center for Civil and Legislative Reform whose institution monitors World Bank conduct.  In the name of national benefit, manipulation and corruption take place at the expense of the citizens in areas where state enterprises are established. “In Abu Ghalib, land had been sold to a Saudi investor who re-sold it to The World Bank for about L.E. 2.2 billion, or US $329 million.  Because The World Bank requires the citizens’ consent,” he added. “The trick of IDs and cash prizes was made.”

Water policy expert and economic researcher, Abdulmawla Ismail, enumerates the breaches of The World Bank projects in Egypt, including its project in the village of Abu Qata in Mansheyet El-Qanatter in the north of Giza, Tibeen power station in Helwan to the south east of Cairo and power plants in Suez and Ain Sukhna.

In the case of Abu Ghalib, he has observed how the station, which is built on 72 acres, damaged and deteriorated 350 acres of the finest lands in the village. The project fence has even infringed the water outlet itself, which may lead to the deterioration of other lands adjacent to the village. He is surprised by selecting fertile agricultural lands, damaging the livelihoods of thousands and killing their cattle in the name of development, he says.

Ismail said that most of the The World Bank projects seek to privatize free facilities and services and help the state raise the cost of such services. He pointed out that civil society organizations had sent complaints to The World Bank Project Control Center in Washington DC regarding the crisis of Abu Ghalib. As a result, The World Bank sent the latest investigative committee.

Ismail doesn’t expect anyone to pay attention to the suffering of the people, as the state protects these projects in the name of the national interest, which deprive the poor of their right to complain, he said.

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